| Exclusive: Pompeo Declines to Sign Risky Afghan Peace Deal Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:42 AM PDT  Tentative First Steps Towards Peace Leave Major Questions Unanswered, Raise Fears of a Return to Taliban Rule
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| Hurricane Dorian: 'Catastrophic' damage in Bahamas leaves 60,000 needing drinking water Posted: 03 Sep 2019 11:17 AM PDT  Hurricane Dorian began lashing parts of Florida on Tuesday after carving a slow path across the Atlantic Ocean that claimed seven lives and caused "catastrophic" damage to the Bahamas. The storm whipped up gusts of 110 miles per hour as it tracked the US coastline and moved north at 6 miles per hour about 110 miles east of Cape Canaveral, the National Hurricane Center said. While Dorian was downgraded to a Category 2 storm on Tuesday, forecasters warned the system had grown in size and that its devastating hurricane-force winds extended 60 miles from the centre. "Even though the storm's category has changed, Dorian is still expected to bring life-threatening storm-surge, heavy wind and rain," said Carlos Castillo, a FEMA deputy administrator. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said he was grateful Florida was poised to dodge the worst of the storm, when a week ago it looked like a potential catastrophe for the southeastern state. The storm instead proved devastating for the Bahamas, where it was confirmed that seven people had died and more than 60,000 are expected to need drinking water in the coming days and weeks. A palm tree bends in the wind next to a flooded street after the effects of Hurricane Dorian arrived in Nassau,Bahamas Credit: REUTERS/John Marc Nutt On Grand Bahama island and the Abaco islands, among the worst affected, more than 13,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed – some 45 per cent of the total. Gusts of up to 220mph earlier had ripped the roofs off houses while the torrential rain saw water sweeping through the streets, forcing some to seek shelter in the attic. Satellite images suggested that vast swathes of the islands were still under water. As much as 35 inches of water was estimated to have been dumped on the Bahamas. Reports of locals trapped in their homes with small children and radio stations being bombarded with distress calls about missing loved ones have begun to surface. Julia Aylen wades through waist deep water carrying her pet dog as she is rescued from her flooded home during Hurricane Dorian in Freeport, Bahamas Credit: AP Photo/Tim Aylen "We are in the midst of a historic tragedy", said Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis. "The devastation is unprecedented and extensive." Forecasts of Dorian's trajectory suggest that its centre will now not move onto the US mainland but instead track the coastline north before turning east. However experts warned that the hurricane's course could change at any moment and said it will still cause life-changing storm surges and flooding to America's eastern coastal regions. A screen grab from a handout video made available by NASA taken from the International Space Station (ISS) showing Hurricane Dorian Credit: NASA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX More than two million people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have been urged to evacuate. The hurricane was approaching the Florida coast on Tuesday afternoon. Dorian had become practically stationary after hitting the Bahamas on Sunday – a rarity for major hurricanes – but on Monday was moving slowly northwest at around 2mph, the equivalent of walking pace. It has meant that the Bahamas, and in particular Grand Bahama and the Abaco islands, have endured the brunt of the storm's ferocity. Grand Bahama island seen from above before the hurricane hit Matthew Cochrane, a Red Cross spokesman, estimated that more than 60,000 people on the islands will need access to clean drinking water. "What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact," Mr Cochrane said. A text message seen by AFP from a woman named Kendra Williams, who lives on Grand Bahama, offered a glimpse of the panic the hurricane had caused among locals. Grand Bahama island, taken midday Monday from the ICEYE-X2 satellite after Dorian hit Credit: ICEYE Satellite photo It read: "We are under water; we are up in the ceiling. Can someone please assist us or send some help. Please. Me and my six grandchildren and my son, we are in the ceiling." Yasmin Rigby, a resident of Grand Bahama's main city Freeport, said locals had been gripped by fear as winds tore off shutters and water begun to pout into people's homes. "People who thought they were safe are now calling for help," Ms Rigby told AFP. "My best friend's husband is stuck in the roof of their house with seven feet [of] water below." A handout photo made available by NASA shows an image of Hurricane Dorian's eye taken by NASA astronaut Nick Hague Credit: NASA HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/REX One radio station said it got more than 2,000 distress messages, including reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a woman with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters. Rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that the Grand Bahama airport was under 6 feet (2 meters) of water. The island's main hospital was also rendered unusable due to flooding. The US Coast Guard airlifted at least 21 people injured on Abaco Island. Bahamas officials said they expected the death toll to rise. A woman takes a picture as the effects of Hurricane Dorian begin to be felt on Monday in Cocoa Beach, Florida Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images North America Britain has joined the rescue effort, with the Department of International Development sending three humanitarian experts to the Bahamas. UK government officials also said the RFA Mounts Bay was ready to offer her assistance if requested by the Bahamas Government. The vessel carries water carriers, hygiene kits that include soap and sanitary items shelter kits for families that have been left homeless. It also has a helicopter able to help with reconnaissance. The Queen said in a statement that she and Prince Philip were "shocked and saddened" by the damage caused by the hurricane and expressed "sincere condolences" to those affected.
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| Tucker Carlson: Gun Buybacks Would Lead to ‘Civil War’ Posted: 03 Sep 2019 06:41 PM PDT  Hours after The View's Meghan McCain warned that there would be "lots of violence" if the American government enforced mandatory gun buybacks, Fox News host Tucker Carlson took that argument even further on Tuesday night and claimed buybacks would lead to a "civil war."Following yet another mass shooting in Texas this past weekend, Carlson led off his Tuesday night primetime program by blasting Democratic calls for mandatory buybacks of assault-style weapons. (The Odessa shooter used an AR-15, a weapon that has become commonplace in mass shootings.)"They are not buying them back," Carlson grumbled. "It's gun confiscation. Nothing but that. An attempt to eliminate a constitutional right the ruling class finds inconvenient.""It won't reduce gun violence," the right-wing cable news host continued. "In fact, sending armed authorities door-to-door to seize people's lawfully owned weapons is a sure-fire recipe for causing violence. If you cared about America and the people who live here, you would not suggest that. But they don't hesitate."Carlson went on to grouse some more over Democrats pointing the finger at firearms and high-capacity magazines and clips as a root cause of America's gun violence problem, bringing on a former Army ranger to back up his criticisms. The Fox host then brought on Democratic strategist Bernard Whitman to debate the merits of buybacks and gun reform in general, resulting in a predictably heated exchange.After Whitman pointed out that the vast majority of American citizens support universal background checks—the Odessa shooter failed a federal background check—Carlson pivoted back to buybacks, insisting they would result in war."What you are calling for is civil war," Carlson exclaimed, noting that several 2020 candidates support buybacks. "What you are calling for is an incitement to violence. It's something—I wouldn't want to live here when that happened, would you?!"The Fox host went on to allege that this was really about the ruling class punishing and attacking rural America, adding that "there is no violent crime in most places where everyone owns a gun." Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| The Harvard student who was denied entry into the US after immigration officers reportedly questioned his religion arrived on campus just before classes started Posted: 03 Sep 2019 09:34 AM PDT  Customs and Border Protection finally granted the student admission to the US, but would not say why they denied entry in the first place.
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| Duterte fires prisons chief amid uproar on convicts' release Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:24 AM PDT  The Philippine president on Wednesday fired the government's top prison official amid a public outcry over the release of hundreds of prisoners, including convicted drug traffickers and rapists, under a law rewarding good behavior with shorter jail terms. President Rodrigo Duterte said in a televised news conference that Undersecretary Nicanor Faeldon of the Bureau of Corrections would immediately resign for disobeying his order to halt the releases of convicted prisoners under the 2014 law. Prison officials will be investigated by a special anti-corruption prosecutor called the Ombudsman in connection with the massive releases of convicts, Duterte said.
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| Cousin says teen in family massacre just learned of stepmother Posted: 04 Sep 2019 09:23 AM PDT  A cousin of an Alabama teenager charged with killing five relatives said the killings occurred days after the teen learned that the woman he considered his mother wasn't a biological parent.
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| 'Contemptuous!': Brexit Britain fumes at reclining MP Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:06 AM PDT  The sight of hardline Brexit backer Jacob Rees-Mogg stretching out across the front bench of Britain's parliament during a particularly heated debate has become an instant meme, causing anger among government opponents. With his tiny round glasses pointing at the ceiling and wearing a double-breasted suit, Rees-Mogg appeared to be taking a rest in the crucial final minutes before a crunch Brexit vote on Tuesday night lit up Twitter. It came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government had lost its working majority in parliament and was about to be dealt its first painful defeat over the terms on which Britain should leave the European Union.
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| San Francisco Labels NRA a ‘Domestic Terrorism Organization’ Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:24 AM PDT  The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution on Tuesday declaring the National Rifle Association a "domestic terrorism organization" due to its opposition to more stringent gun-control legislation.The resolution accuses the NRA of not only resisting legislative reforms that its drafters believe would help curtail the country's "epidemic of gun violence," but also of "incit[ing] gun owners to acts of violence.""All countries have violent and hateful people, but only in America do we give them ready access to assault weapons and large-capacity magazines thanks, in large part, to the National Rifle Association's influence," the resolution says.The resolution also declares the Board's intent to "limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization." It was drafted following a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival last month that resulted in the deaths of three people, according to local Fox affiliate KTVU.The NRA responded to the provocation by accusing the Board of seeking to distract from the city's shortcomings."This ludicrous stunt by the Board of Supervisors is an effort to distract from the real problems facing San Francisco, such as rampant homelessness, drug abuse and skyrocketing petty crime, to name a few," the statement said, according to KTVU. "The NRA will continue working to protect the constitutional rights of all freedom-loving Americans."The partisan battle over gun control has escalated in recent weeks due to mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio and, most recently, Odessa and Midland, Texas.Congressional Democrats and their colleagues seeking the presidency continue to demand universal-background-check legislation. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, remains hesitant to endorse any specific legislation but said Tuesday that he would be eager to support any reforms backed by the White House.
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| Pence says he hopes for orderly Brexit amid showdown Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:41 AM PDT  U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Wednesday he hoped Great Britain and the European Union would reach a deal for an orderly UK exit from the bloc, commenting on the issue that has convulsed British politics for months and reached a crescendo this week. Pence, who is due to meet UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday, told reporters during a visit to Iceland that the United States stands with the UK in its decision to leave the EU.
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| Global heating made Hurricane Dorian bigger, wetter – and more deadly Posted: 03 Sep 2019 11:00 PM PDT  We know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures'As climate change has melted glaciers and ice around the world, that water has gone into the oceans.' Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/APThe Bahamas, for those who live there, is simply a place to call home. For many Americans, it's a dream vacation spot. But Hurricane Dorian turned that dream into a nightmare. And the worst part is this is only the beginning. Because unless we confront the climate crisis, warming will turn more and more of our fantastic landscapes, cities we call paradise and other dream destinations into nightmarish hellscapes.While the science has yet to come in on the specifics of just how much worse climate change made Dorian, we already know enough to say that warming worsened the damage. Because it's not a coincidence that Dorian was one of the strongest landfalling storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, with the strongest sustained peak winds east of Florida, and the strongest ever to hit the Bahamas. This comes less than a year after Florida withstood the first landfalling category 5 hurricane in decades, on 5 October – the latest ever in the season for a storm that strong.On a basic physics level, we know that warm waters fuel hurricanes, and Dorian was strengthened by waters well above average temperatures. The fact that climate change has heated up our oceans means Dorian was stronger than it would have been had we not spent the past 150 years dumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere. Sea surface temperatures were more than 1C warmer in the region where Dorian formed and strengthened than they were before we started burning fossil fuels.Empirically, there is a roughly 7% increase in maximum sustained wind speeds of the strongest storms for each 1C of warming. Since destructive potential is proportional to the third power of the wind speed, that corresponds to a 23% increase in potential wind damage. We saw that wind damage in the heartbreaking scenes of total devastation that have come in from the Bahamas.We know that the warmer air gets, the more moisture it can hold – and then turn into flooding rains in a storm like this. And we know that as climate change has melted glaciers and ice around the world, that water has gone into the oceans. The extra water, along with the expansion of water as it's warmed, means that sea levels have been raised. That means when a storm like Dorian makes landfall, there's more water for its storm surge, already bolstered by stronger winds, to push further inland.All that extra water makes hurricanes even more deadly, since it's generally not the wind but the water that kills people. So although Dorian's 220mph gusts were incredibly dangerous (and sped up thanks to climate change), it was the 20-plus feet of storm surge and torrential rains that were the most destructive elements.But there are two other ways that warming has probably worsened Dorian's damage. One is that all that warm water allowed for the storm to ramp up quickly, undergoing what is known as rapid intensification as it exploded from a moderate category 2 to extreme category 5 over just two days. A recent study has shown that this is getting more common because of climate change, and indeed the past few years have seen many similar examples of this effect in action. Dorian was the fourth category 5 storm in just the last four years.So while climate change is making it so hurricanes can spin up quickly, it may also be slowing down how fast hurricanes move. Instead of moving across a coast and dissipating as normal, in recent years these storms are lingering longer in place, which means more flooding as the water piles up. For example, that's exactly what we saw in Houston during Harvey, and in North Carolina during Florence.Had Dorian been moving at a regular pace of a few miles an hour, the devastation in the Bahamas would have been much less severe. But because it sat in place, basically stationary, the damage has been catastrophic. Again, Dorian is far from unique in moving slowly, as a study last year found a 10% decrease in speed for storms like this globally, while a similar study found a 17% decrease along the east coast of the US. While neither of these studies directly tie that slowdown to climate change, the theory that climate change is changing the jet stream in ways that would lead to stalling storms (a phenomenon one of us has researched) is growing increasingly convincing.When all these factors combine in one storm, as it has for Dorian, it is truly a nightmare scenario – and a preview of the climate crisis to come. The only question is whether we have the foresight to address it. * Michael Mann is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. His most recent book, with Tom Toles, is The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial Is Threatening Our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving Us Crazy. Andrew Dessler is a professor of atmospheric sciences and holder of the Reta A Haynes chair of geosciences at Texas A&M University. His most recent book is the Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate
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| Meghan McCain Clashes With ‘View’ Co-Hosts: ‘I’m Not Living Without Guns’ Posted: 03 Sep 2019 09:52 AM PDT  Returning for its 23rd season on Tuesday morning, The View started off right where it left off this summer: With conservative co-host Meghan McCain clashing with her colleagues on a hot-button social issue while grousing about being outnumbered by her liberal cohorts.Discussing this past weekend's mass shooting in Odessa that left at least seven people dead, the panel noted that the shooter had actually failed a federal background check but was able to purchase a firearm due to the gun-show loophole. This prompted the majority of the table—including former Fox News host Abby Huntsman—to lament the lack of action on behalf of the Republican-led Senate to address gun violence."If nothing is going to happen after Sandy Hook, I don't know what it's going to take," Huntsman sighed.Moments later, McCain weighed in as the "chick on the panel that spent most of her break shooting."Stating that there need to be more reporters in mainstream media on the "gun beat" because there are a lot of people on TV "talking about guns that clearly have never shot a gun," McCain complained about Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke's proposal for a mandatory gun buyback."I will say this is a ground-level issue for me," she added. "If you're going to be a gun-grabber, you don't get my vote, period. We got to have a different conversation."Liberal co-host Joy Behar—a regular sparring partner of McCain's—pointed out that there have been gun restrictions passed by previous Democratic administrations, specifically noting that the Clinton White House passed an assault-weapons ban."The AR-15 is by far the most popular gun in America, by far," McCain declared. "I was just in the middle of Wyoming, if you're talking about taking people's guns from them, there's going to be a lot of violence.""But they lived without them for many years during the ban," Behar retorted."I'm not living without guns," McCain exclaimed. "It's just that simple!"Hostin, meanwhile, asked if she could live without assault weapons, causing McCain to reiterate that the AR-15 was very popular before complaining that she was being "virtue signaled."Huntsman, however, responded to her close friend, wondering if they could live in an America where you could "walk in a mall and not be nervous that someone is going to pull out a shotgun."McCain asserted that she felt safe because she could protect herself because "I have guns at my house" before stopping herself short as she felt the audience wasn't with her."All right, welcome back," she sarcastically muttered, sipping from her coffee mug.As the segment came to a close, McCain would pipe up once again about O'Rourke's gun buyback proposal, insisting that her guns are "not for sale."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| 'My Heart Aches.' Simone Biles Addresses Charges Her Brother Killed 3 People Posted: 03 Sep 2019 06:29 AM PDT  Simone Biles addressed her brother's murder charges in a short statement, saying her "heart aches for everyone involved."
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| A vegan woman sued her neighbors for barbecuing in their backyard: 'It's deliberate' Posted: 03 Sep 2019 07:10 AM PDT  Cilla Carden took her case to Australian supreme court, citing her neighbors' barbecuing, smoking and children playing basketball.
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| A 17-year-old celebrating her birthday with her parents was among the dozens who died in the diving boat fire off the coast of California Posted: 03 Sep 2019 10:31 AM PDT  The Conception was carrying 33 passengers and six crew members when it caught fire off the coast of Southern California, early Monday morning.
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| Cathay Pacific chairman steps down amid Hong Kong protests Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:15 AM PDT ![Cathay Pacific chairman steps down amid Hong Kong protests]( "Cathay Pacific chairman steps down amid Hong Kong protests") The chairman of Cathay Pacific Airways on Wednesday became the second top figure to resign from the Hong Kong carrier following pressure by Beijing over participation by some of its employees in anti-government protests. The airline, one of the Chinese territory's most prominent businesses, announced John Slosar was retiring. Cathay CEO Rupert Hogg quit Aug. 16, becoming the highest-profile corporate casualty of pressure on companies to support the ruling Communist Party against the protesters.
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| Albanian crime boss who ran multi-million pound drugs racked ordered to pay only £14,380 Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:38 PM PDT  An Albanian drugs kingpin who ran a multi-million pound cocaine racket only has to pay back £14,380 after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) requested a "risible" sum, a judge has complained. Gang leader Erald Mema who was jailed for 25 years for flooding the UK with class A drugs was this week given three months to repay and to allow time for the auctioning of his Rolex watch. Judge Peter Ross said he had no option but to approve the pay back order but criticised the CPS for agreeing the figure. The 34-year-old, who had lived in Botley, Hampshire, brought class A drugs from Albania into the UK together with his co-conspirators and distributed them all over Oxfordshire and beyond. He was caught after a sting operation involving undercover police and drugs raids. At a hearing this week to recover his ill-gotten gains, the CPS asked for just £14,380 despite the racket raking in millions of pounds. Cocaine production: Cocaine-related deaths in England and Wales Presiding Judge Peter Ross said: "This is a man through whose hands millions of pounds of cocaine went. This is a man who on the face of the evidence I heard in the trial has profited massively from what was an enormous drugs operation. "He was a man who was organising what was undoubtedly an organised criminal group, receiving the cocaine at the point of importation, managing its wholesale distribution across the UK to other significant organised criminal groups. "The idea that the only available assets are under £14,500 is simply risible." Judge Ross also said the case could have been eligible for a "hidden assets" application whereby prosecutors could force him to justify his claims about his lack of wealth. In response, prosecutors said that checks had been made in Albania and in the UK and given the available evidence the decision was taken not to pursue a hidden assets case and to seek just over £14,000 instead. Judge Ross said: "I don't know who made this choice, made this decision, but whilst I have to make the order, and it seems to me I have no alternative, it should not be taken by the public as an indication that I approve of this. "His sentence reflected the significant role, the huge role, he had. He was at the top of this organised crime group in the UK. I imagine that the defence are delighted to agree to this order." FAQ | County lines Judge Ross formally declared that the total benefit from criminal activity was £701,680 and that a total of £14,380 could be confiscated as ill-gotten gains. If he defaults on the cash owed he will serve a further three years and six months in prison to run consecutive to his current jail term of 25 years. During Mema's original trial which was held at Oxford Crown Court in October it was revealed that he had been at the helm of a country-wide drugs plot between June 1, 2016, and December 2, 2016. Mema had denied any involvement in the drugs ring but a jury took nine hours and 12 minutes to find him guilty by a majority to two counts of conspiracy to supply class A drugs. After the arrest of one of his co-conspirators - Mema's subordinate Khalad Uddin, officers found hundreds of thousands of pounds of cash at his Scholars Mews apartment as well as at Little Brewery Street in Oxford. Sentencing at the time Judge Ross, who presided over the two-month case, said that Mema had run a 'sophisticated and organised' gang. He said: "The organisation that you headed supplied millions of pounds worth of cocaine around the UK. It was an organisation run on business lines. You are a rarity, you are the top man when it comes to this organised crime operation. "No one reading the newspapers, watching the television news can be in any doubt criminal enterprises such as yours generate violence, serious violence, involving the use of guns and knives."
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| Death of the ‘Gay Gene’ Posted: 03 Sep 2019 02:30 AM PDT  A new study involving hundreds of thousands of participants finds that homosexual behavior is about one-third genetic — and that many genes are involved, each having only a tiny effect. It even manages to single out a few: "rs34730029," for example, increases the chance of having a same-sex experience by 0.4 percentage points. These genes might affect sex hormones and the sense of smell.This is a breakthrough, but it won't surprise anyone who's been paying attention to developments in genetics. The one-third estimate is consistent with earlier, simpler studies on twins. And while making some sense out of humanity's zillions of DNA bits is an impressive feat, countless previous studies have used these same methods to analyze other traits from schizophrenia to educational attainment -- always with the upshot that lots of genes, each with a small effect, were at work. If you're still captivated by the idea of a single, all-powerful "gay gene," or for that matter an all-powerful gene for any behavioral trait, please drop it.The more interesting questions are whether the causes of homosexuality have any political implications in this day and age, and whether it would make sense to try to stop research like this from happening.In covering the study, the New York Times summarized its critics' fears. To them, this is a Catch-22 where a result in either direction gives the bad guys — social conservatives — ammo:> One concern is that evidence that genes influence same-sex behavior could cause anti-gay activists to call for gene editing or embryo selection, even if that would be technically impossible. Another fear is that evidence that genes play only a partial role could embolden people who insist being gay is a choice and who advocate tactics like conversion therapy.One of these is a worry from the future, the other one increasingly consigned to the past, but both are worth discussing.The gene-selection dystopia is the bigger and scarier possibility, though I am not sure how many critics of homosexuality are also big fans of tinkering with human DNA. We can already create embryos in a tube, test their genes, and then implant the ones we like best. We already do it to prevent genetic diseases, in fact. But this just lets parents choose among a set of embryos they made; it doesn't let them create a "designer baby" in detail. For that you'd need gene-editing technology.Which also already exists, even if, practically speaking, it's too error-prone to be worth the risk. Yet there's no stopping its improvement: Even in the unlikely event that the U.S. banned gene-editing research, other countries (and rogue scientists) would proceed regardless.The same, of course, is true of research on which genes cause homosexuality. If these authors hadn't done this study, someone else would have soon enough, and the studies coming out 20 years from now will be even more extensive and precise, identifying far more of the specific genes at work. How would you possibly put an end to surveys and blood tests in an age when you can buy a DNA sequencer online?Gene-editing technology plus detailed knowledge about which genes affect which traits: You do the math. Eventually it will almost certainly be possible, and perhaps legal in some countries eager to attract a new kind of birth tourism, to edit an embryo for whatever reason you want, including reducing the chance your kid will be attracted to members of the same sex. How often gene-editing actually happens will be a function of the cost of such services, the risks, and humanity's desire for them at that point in time.I don't have any insightful observation to make or wonky policy to suggest here. I just don't think we're going to stop this over the long run, at least not completely, and I don't think this single study will carry much responsibility for it when it happens.So what about the more immediate concern, that the new study gives credibility to the idea that being gay is a "choice"?For starters, its findings aren't too relevant to that debate. The fact that homosexuality is only one-third genetic does not imply it's mostly a choice. There are numerous theories positing biological mechanisms besides genes — prenatal hormones, germs, etc. Other parts of the environment that we don't choose could also affect our sexuality. The study did find that occasional experimentation with same-sex partners, as opposed to a consistent preference for them, overlaps genetically with the personality trait of openness, but I don't think anyone doubted that was a choice to begin with.More to the point: Yes, it's true that whether homosexuality is a choice could have political relevance in a country trying to decide whether to ban it or discourage it. In theory, such policies will be more effective and less cruel when they regulate behaviors and tendencies that people can easily change.But at least among the Western audience most attuned to this research — which is based on British and American samples — that debate is more or less over. Here in the U.S., the Supreme Court requires state governments to actively recognize gay marriages, and a growing majority of the public supports such recognition. (For whatever it's worth, I am part of that majority.) Right now the legal action is on the question of when private businesses can be forced to participate in gay couples' wedding ceremonies.I don't see decades' worth of increasing acceptance of homosexuality disappearing just because this trait, like pretty much all human traits, is only partly genetic. And as for conversion therapy, frankly, while I've seen no evidence it works, if an adult wants to try to change his sexuality or learn not to act on it — hey, knock yourself out.Interestingly, one of the study's authors pitches his research as the opposite of a Catch-22 for the Left, a situation where both the environmental and the genetic component should somehow help to normalize homosexuality. "I hope that the science can be used to educate people a little bit more about how natural and normal same-sex behavior is," he told the NYT. "It's written into our genes and it's part of our environment. This is part of our species and it's part of who we are."Whatever you make of that as an argument, it's no coincidence that the study's authors are ready with spin like this for the press. One reason they did this research is that if they didn't, another, less careful team might have done it first, without all the consultations with LGBT activist groups that the paper touts to shield itself from the mob.Anyway. We are rapidly learning more about human nature and human variation, and the discoveries will only keep coming. Some of that knowledge will help us live longer and fight disease; some of it will make us more tolerant of people we don't understand; some of it could be used for evil purposes. And all of it, heaven help us, is too fascinating to ignore.
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| Full U.S. pullout from Afghanistan could ignite 'total civil war': ex-U.S. envoys Posted: 03 Sep 2019 09:16 AM PDT  Nine former U.S. ambassadors on Tuesday warned that Afghanistan could collapse in a "total civil war" if President Donald Trump withdraws all U.S. forces before the Kabul government and the Taliban conclude a peace settlement. The nine, including five former ambassadors to Kabul, a former special envoy to Afghanistan and a former deputy secretary of State, issued their warning a day after U.S. chief negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad announced a draft accord with the Taliban for an initial drawdown of nearly 5,000 U.S. troops.
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| Florida is ready, but where is the hurricane? Posted: 03 Sep 2019 12:30 PM PDT  Houses and businesses are boarded up, bridges to barrier islands are blocked and many residents of Florida's beachside communities are long gone. "The uncertainty is a little nerve wracking," says Drew Gabrielson, clutching his trembling Chihuahua Rodney as he looks across a beach at the roughening surf. On Tuesday, Dorian began moving at five miles per hour (eight kilometers per hour), a positively jaunty pace after being stuck at a near standstill for the better part of two days as it battered the helpless Bahamas.
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| Boris Johnson Humiliated by Parliament in First Brexit Vote Posted: 03 Sep 2019 02:57 PM PDT  REUTERSLONDON—Theresa May's abject humiliation over Brexit was three years in the making as she endured failed negotiations, misfiring political gambles, and a series of internal revolts. Boris Johnson got there in just one vote. The biographer of Winston Churchill entered Downing Street breathing rhetorical fire just one day before Parliament was closed for the summer. On his very first day back in Parliament, he lost his majority in the House of Commons and was then defeated by his own side in a bitter battle over his trademark Brexit policy. The prime minister was reduced to begging the opposition parties to agree to a general election after he lost the power to deliver a Brexit of his choosing by 328 votes to 301. Lawmakers are expected to vote to rule out a hard, no-deal Brexit on Wednesday, which Johnson believes will destroy his ability to negotiate a good deal with the European Union.Kamikaze Boris Johnson Risks Becoming Britain's Shortest-Serving PMJohnson came to power boasting an ironclad, "do-or-die" commitment to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31. Braggadocious stories leaked to senior newspaper reporters explained that—after May's failure to deliver Brexit—the real men were now in charge and would channel the spirit of "Cocaine Mitch" to force through their plan using every mechanism or procedure in the book. Johnson appointed a notoriously spiky strategist as his chief of staff, and last week they broke with precedent and asked the Queen to shut down parliament for five weeks until just before the Brexit deadline to prevent lawmakers thwarting Johnson's Brexit plan. The move was condemned as a constitutional outrage, and tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest in cities and towns across Britain.Instead of convincing opponents within his own Conservative Party to back down, the extraordinary gambit only served to strengthen their resolve. When it looked as though there would be enough rebels for the House of Commons to seize control of parliamentary business from Johnson, No. 10 responded not with conciliatory overtures but by threatening to kick anyone who voted against him out of the Conservative Party and banning them from running for re-election under the party's banner. On Tuesday night, 21 members of the party disregarded the threats and voted to take away Johnson's control over Brexit. The so-called "rebel alliance" will use that control to hold a new vote on Wednesday that would force Johnson to seek a further Brexit extension from the European Union. The lawmakers who risked their own careers and were thus willing to be expelled from the Conservative Party in order to face down their party leader included a former chancellor of the exchequer, a former attorney general and Ken Clarke, a veteran of Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet, who now holds the unofficial position of Father of the House, as the longest-serving member of the Commons. Another of the rebels who moved against the prime minister was Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Churchill, Johnson's cherished hero. Assuming the prime minister goes through with his threat to boot these Conservative stalwarts from the party, he will be reduced to presiding over a government with a majority of minus 42.Philip Lee had already destroyed Johnson's majority earlier in the day when he quit the party by walking across the chamber to sit with the Liberal Democrats—while the prime minister was still speaking."This Conservative Government is aggressively pursuing a damaging Brexit in unprincipled ways," Lee said. "It is undermining our country's economy, democracy and role in the world. It is using political manipulation, bullying and lies. And it is doing these things in a deliberate and considered way."Johnson challenged the opposition Labour Party to back his calls for a general election to be held on Oct. 15, before the Halloween deadline he has pledged to meet. "I don't want an election but if MPs vote tomorrow to stop the negotiations and to compel another pointless delay of Brexit, potentially for years, then that will be the only way to resolve this," he said.Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would only agree to an election once the threat of no-deal had been taken off the table.It is very likely that an election will be held in the coming months, and the only thing on Johnson's record will be the failure to deliver his only policy.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Tens of thousands of US children told to get vaccinated or face expulsion Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:35 AM PDT  Jacquelynn Vance-Pauls, a real estate lawyer in upstate New York, has a 14-year-old son with autism who was recently kicked out of his private special needs school.Her 9-year-old twins and her high-school senior are also on the verge of being expelled from their public schools. The children did not do anything wrong, nor are they sick.
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| Mom who was teaching son to drive killed in Milwaukee road rage shooting Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:37 PM PDT  A road rage incident took the life of a mother who was teaching her son to drive in Milwaukee. Matthew Lee Wilks was charged in the shooting.
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| South African Protests Spread to Cape Town Over Murders of Women Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:05 AM PDT ![South African Protests Spread to Cape Town Over Murders of Women]( "South African Protests Spread to Cape Town Over Murders of Women") (Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of demonstrators protesting South Africa's high rate of violence against women blocked the entrance to the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town as the event got under way on Wednesday.The protest was triggered by the murder last week of 19-year-old University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana -- one of the regular incidents of femicide in a nation notorious for its grim crime statistics. A woman is murdered every three hours in South Africa, according to police data.The killing of Mrwetyana, who was raped and bludgeoned to death at a post office in an upmarket suburb of Cape Town, followed the murder of champion boxer Leighandre Jegels, 25, who was allegedly shot by an ex-boyfriend who had a restraining order against him. Before that, there was Meghan Cremer, an avid horse rider who was allegedly killed by three men as she left her farm outside of Cape Town.More than a thousand people were involved in the protest, bearing placards including one that simply said: "Stop Killing Us." On Twitter and Facebook, women called for action and suggested ideas including carrying pepper spray and taking self-defense classes, to imposing a curfew on men.With the country also suffering a spate of deadly xenophobic attacks in its economic hub, Johannesburg, President Cyril Ramaphosa took to Twitter on Tuesday night and, in more than a dozen Tweets, implored citizens to help battle the scourge of violence and femicide.The word "womxn" has been used in recent years by gender activists to denote transgender women, women of color and as a rejection of the word "women" being derived from, or lesser than, "men."With the protesters having gathered twice during the day, security teams moved to put up fencing around the conference center's entrances and shut down all but one access point. This meant rerouting WEF delegates and discouraging them from gathering at windows to look at the action in the street."We're here to support the women who are victims of sexual violence," Erin Connolly, one of the protesters gathered outside, said as the crowd chanted "how many more."(Updates with protester comment in final paragraph.)\--With assistance from Antony Sguazzin and Prinesha Naidoo.To contact the reporter on this story: Renee Bonorchis in Johannesburg at rbonorchis@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Liezel HillFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Tropical Storm Fernand forms in Gulf as it moves toward Mexico Posted: 04 Sep 2019 07:32 AM PDT  The low spinning in the Gulf near Mexico has intensified into a tropical storm. It is expected to move into Mexico Wednesday evening.
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| Blasey Ford’s Lawyer Admits Client Wants ‘Asterisk’ Next to Kavanaugh’s Name When He Rules on Roe Posted: 04 Sep 2019 10:16 AM PDT  Debra Katz, the attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, who leveled sexual-assault allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, admitted during an April speech that her client's decision to come forward was partly motivated by a desire to put "an asterisk next to" Kavanaugh's name before "he takes a scalpel" to Roe v. Wade.The video, which was obtained by The Daily Caller, shows Katz discussing the positive implications of Blasey Ford's testimony before the University of Baltimore's Feminist Legal Theory Conference in April."In the aftermath of these hearings, I believe that Christine's testimony brought about more good than the harm misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanaugh on the court," Katz says in the video. "He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important; it is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine."After Kavanaugh was nominated to the High Court, Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor, accused him of tackling her onto a bed and groping her while drunk during a high-school party. During the weeks-long confirmation fight that followed, Blasey Ford and her counsel maintained that she was motivated by nothing more then a sense of civic duty, and specifically denounced the suggestion that she was politically motivated.Kavanaugh unequivocally denied the allegations and no witnesses or contemporaneous evidence emerged to support Blasey Ford's account.A coalition of progressive advocacy groups is urging Congress to open an investigation into the allegations brought by Blasey Ford and other high-school and college acquaintances of Kavanaugh's."Senate Republicans made a mockery of their constitutional responsibility to provide 'advice and consent' on the president's nomination of Justice Kavanaugh, and the American people deserve to know how and why the process was such a sham," the groups wrote in a letter to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees. "The public is just as entitled to a thorough review of Justice Kavanaugh's record now as it was before he was elevated to the Supreme Court and to know whether allegations against him of sexual assault and perjury have any factual basis."
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| House panel subpoenas DHS over alleged Trump pardon offers Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:00 PM PDT  The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on Wednesday subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security for documents that could shed light on President Donald Trump's alleged offer of pardons to officials implementing U.S. immigration policy. The committee, which is considering whether to recommend impeachment against Trump, cited press reports that the president offered pardons to officials should they face legal action for following his instructions to close a section of the U.S.-Mexico border, aggressively seize private property and disregard environmental rules in erecting a border fence. "The dangling of pardons by the president to encourage government officials to violate federal law would constitute another reported example of the president's disregard for the rule of law," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrod Nadler said in a statement.
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| Hurricane Dorian has killed at least 20 people in the Bahamas, including an 8-year-old boy who reportedly drowned Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:19 PM PDT  Hurricane Dorian pummeled the Bahamas this past weekend as a Category 5 storm, destroying houses and creating a storm surge of up to 23 feet.
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| Students Repeatedly Posed in Blackface and Threatened Black Classmates. Their School Ignored, Lawsuit Alleges. Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:35 AM PDT  Star Tribune via Getty ImagesSome white students at Chaska High School in Minnesota ended last school year the same way they began it: In photos, wearing blackface.The academic year in the 28,000-person suburb began in September 2018 with white students attending a football game in blackface, and, in one student's case, an afro. In December, a middle school student in the same district—located roughly 30 miles southwest of Minneapolis—found that his gym shirt had been stolen, vandalized with the n-word, and returned to his locker. In February 2019, two white students in the district put on charcoal face masks and put the photos on social media with the hashtag: blackface.That same month, another student allegedly posted on Snapchat, holding a gun, and threatened to shoot a list of students if they attended a Chaska High School assembly on race relations. In April, white students posted an image on Snapchat with the faces of 25 African-American students, calling the location "Negro Hill."The lede on a local news story in April began: "Chaska, it happened again. Another racially charged incident in Eastern Carver County Public Schools."And by the time a photo of a student wearing blackface appeared in the yearbook in May, the response from parents on the newly created Equity Task Force was: "Not again, are you serious? The same exact issue of blackface again?"On Tuesday, they'd had enough.Six current and former students from the district filed a 50-page civil-rights lawsuit in federal court against Independent School District 112, also known as Eastern Carver County Schools, claiming that teachers and administrators demonstrated "deliberate indifference" and failed to take "any meaningful action" in response to repeated complaints of racist bullying. The school district "turned a blind eye" to black students who were called the n-word, "monkey," told they "don't belong," and threatened with physical violence, the lawsuit claims."School staff have little, if any, proper training or experience with respect to properly responding to reports of racism," according to the complaint, which alleges that "often times, complaints of discrimination are simply met by silence."Students of color were even prohibited from posting "Black Lives Matter" signs and materials featuring African-American leaders during Black History Month, the lawsuit states.Four of the six students in the lawsuit relocated from the district as a direct result of the racism they experienced over the past few years, according to the lawsuit.The Minneapolis Star-Tribune first reported the legal action, which followed months of pressure from parents in the school district, where only 3 percent of students are black, per data from the Office of Civil Rights.Amanda Flowers Peterson told the Star-Tribune last month that her 6-year-old son was punched in the face—twice—by a classmate and "told he doesn't belong." Administrators declined to call the incident racially motivated, she said. Peterson and her husband are plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which says that they removed their son from the district after repeated concerns about neglect—including an incident where he was allegedly left unsupervised for 45 minutes after he was sent home on the wrong bus and another where he was sent outside for recess for 20 minutes in 23-degree weather with no coat on.Schools officials called Amanda Peterson, who is black, "too aggressive" when she complained, the lawsuit states. In May 2019, a substitute teacher with the district "contacted Ms. Peterson's employer and demanded she be fired" over her advocacy efforts to correct the racism that had systematically affected the district, according to the lawsuit. The six students are seeking a jury trial to determine damages in excess of $75,000 over the mental anguish and emotional distress caused by the racism at the school district."At some point, enough is enough," attorney Anna Prakash, who represents some of the families, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday."Our public schools are supposed to respect and keep children safe while creating an educational environment in which they can thrive. That didn't happen for African-American students in Chaska," said Prakash."Our clients tried and continue to try to get help from the administration," said Prakash, "But, with all they have experienced and because meaningful change has not happened, they filed this lawsuit." "It is a pervasive problem and it goes back years," she added. "These students and their parents are incredibly brave."Prakash said none of the families involved in the lawsuit were available to comment to The Daily Beast by press time.* * *'LEAVE NOW'* * *The allegations in the lawsuit involve students as young as six and up through seniors in high school who are now adults.A former student at Chaska Middle School East, identified in the lawsuit only by "T.B.," recalled that white students at his school kicked him in the knees and called him "monkey," sometimes even writing the word on his school folders and placing a picture of a monkey on his desk. White students allegedly smashed T.B.'s computer, told him that he stinks, and repeatedly told him that his dad "is a drug dealer or rapper, saying that is what all black dads are," according to the lawsuit.In December, students took T.B.'s gym shirt out of his locker and wrote the n-word on it, along with "leave now." Since T.B. was "worried about the cost of a new T-shirt, he put the T-shirt on and put a sweatshirt over it," the lawsuit states.When he reported the vandalism to the school's assistant principal, he was given a new shirt and an email was sent to his mother, which spelled out the slur. "It was very vague, very cold and no apology or how they were going to handle it going forward other than we got him a new T-shirt," T.B.'s mother said in a local news interview."The city... looks at kids of color differently than kids that walk around with white skin," she said. "I don't think their staff is equipped at the school to handle it or know how in the right way. And I think they'd rather just keep pushing it under the rug."T.B.'s parents pulled him and his siblings out of the district. Jquan Fuller-Rueschman, a former Chaska High student who left the school midway through his senior year, said in the lawsuit that he was punched in the face by a white student, repeatedly called the n-word, accused of being stupid and dumb, had food thrown at him, and had his car egged. He was labeled "aggressive" and suspended after confronting a student who repeatedly called him the n-word, the complaint states.When he was on the football team in October 2016, Jquan said he was threatened by a white teammate who said he would "bring a gun to shoot you." The coach allegedly responded by noting that "all of the drama seems to involve you."Even after he left the school in September 2018, Jquan's was one of the 25 student faces superimposed on the Google map labeled "Negro Hill" by white Chaska students, the lawsuit contends."They don't like black people," then-sophomore Darius Stewart, whose face was also on the map, told a local news station. "They want us gone. I mean, I am hopeful but I don't think racism is going to stop."Several current and former high school students in the lawsuit expressed that they felt "unwelcome" and unsafe attending school. One former student was hospitalized last school year over severe anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts, which she linked to racism at school.After the yearbook printed the photo of a student in blackface, Assistant Principal Jim Swearingen said in a letter to the school community claiming that administrators had "talked" about "the racist history behind wearing blackface."But Tonya Coleman, one of the parents who filed suit on Tuesday, disagreed with Swearingen's interpretation of events. "They haven't had any dialogue about it all, according to many, many parents," she told the Star-Tribune in the spring.Swearingen's letter said that school officials discovered the image after the book was printed but before it was distributed and that the administration does not "condone the ridicule or demeaning of humans, particularly our own students" and apologized for the "delay in our yearbook distribution."In April, concerned parents in the district formed a group called Residents Organizing Against Racism (ROAR) and created a petition for the removal of Chaska High School's principal. The petition, which was signed by more than 700 people, also called for a zero-tolerance anti-racism policy and significant changes to the curriculum. Utah State Student Killed Herself After Eight Months of Racist Attacks—and the School Did Nothing, Suit ClaimsJenna Cruz, a 34-year-old mother of three biracial kids in Chaska, who is part of ROAR, told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that the district's responses have failed to even use the word "racism.""It's labelled as bullying and inappropriate behavior," said Cruz, who has two elementary-school-aged children. ROAR currently has about 126 parents and community members who are helping organize, she added.Cruz said that her children have not yet been directly affected by the incidents named in the lawsuit."I don't want them to experience this," she said. "I can't sit back and do nothing and watch kids just be harmed by going to school. Whether it's my kid or someone else's.""We can't hold the school accountable for the students' actions, but the school is responsible for their reaction to it, and how they communicate that to parents," she added. "The significance of not relaying this information to parents so that they can protect their children is negligence. There's no grey area in this.""There's been a shift in the climate in the last two years, and there's been this emboldened voice for people acting like this is OK," said Cruz. "I'm not shocked, but what was shocking is the lack of appropriate response from the administrators." "There's a large [group] that stands in solidarity with the brave parents and students that are doing this lawsuit," said Cruz. "They made the decision to do what's right."Last month, ROAR invited Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to speak to the community. "I have read about some things I find deeply disturbing," Ellison, who is black, said at the 90-minute meeting on August 20, cautioning the 30 parents in attendance not to give up on "any of these knuckleheads.""Speak up even if your voice quivers," he said to the crowd. "Don't let the ugly ideas soak into the soil."The district declined to comment on specific litigation to The Daily Beast but forwarded an open letter that Superintendent Clint Christopher wrote to Ellison on Aug. 26, after his visit, which claimed that the school board and district staff "are committed to an educational environment where all students feel safe, welcome, and included, and have the tools and resources to succeed.""We have not yet realized that for every student, and have been working in earnest to move the needle and improve outcomes for every child that walks through our doors," Christopher said.Christopher's letter noted that the district hired a new director of equity and inclusion this summer, that 40 district and building administrative leaders have in recent months participated in more than two days of training based on the University of Minnesota's Urban Leadership Academy, and that the district has formed an Equity Advisory Council of parents and community members. The district also hired a "nationally-recognized researcher" to conduct an audit of "our policies, practices, and performance data using an equity lens," which will conclude this month, he said. "This is important work, it's the right work, and we are all committed to doing better for each student," said Christopher. "They're the reason we're here."Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Kabul 'concerned' about US-Taliban deal, seeks clarification Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:31 AM PDT  The Afghan government expressed doubts Wednesday about a prospective deal between the US and the Taliban, saying officials need more information about the risks it poses. US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad was in Kabul this week, when he shared with Afghan officials an agreement "in principle" that Washington has forged with the Taliban and would lead to a pull-out of American troops. The prospect of a US-Taliban deal has caused much concern among many Afghans, who feel sidelined from the process, worry the hardline Islamists will return to power, and see a beaten America selling out their interests in a bid to escape Afghanistan after 18 years of gruelling war.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Nissan Juke Posted: 03 Sep 2019 10:56 AM PDT |
| Texas governor resists calls for quick votes after shooting Posted: 04 Sep 2019 03:52 PM PDT  Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on Wednesday rejected calls from Democrats for immediate votes on new gun safety measures in Texas following a violent August that began and ended with mass shootings that left 29 people dead and injured dozens more. The Texas Legislature doesn't meet again until 2021.
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| If You Want to Index the Capital-Gains Tax, Do It the Right Way Posted: 04 Sep 2019 02:30 AM PDT  After some waffling, it appears that President Trump is again thinking about "indexing" the capital-gains tax.The case for doing so is simple enough. The tax, of up to 20 percent, applies when you sell investments or property that have appreciated in value, and there is no adjustment for inflation. So if your $100 worth of stock grows to $110 over a certain period, and prices in general rose 10 percent over that same period, you'll owe tax on a $10 "gain" that is not even real. Tax experts across the political spectrum agree this is not ideal. If we're going to tax capital gains, the money should come from investors who actually made gains.But there are serious legal and policy problems with making this change the way the administration is considering: simply reinterpreting the word "cost" in current law to refer to the inflation-adjusted cost rather than the nominal price paid.This would be a big change, cutting revenue at least $10 billion a year — in the ballpark of 10 percent of what the tax brings in — at a time when we're already running trillion-dollar deficits. And if the president does this himself, he can't raise the overall capital-gains rate, hike other taxes, or cut spending to compensate. This is not a decision to be made lightly, and it's the kind of change that should inspire conservative skepticism when pursued by executive fiat. (Liberal skepticism, of course, is also a given, because the capital-gains tax is overwhelmingly paid by the richest Americans.)Legally, it's far from clear this is even allowed, as Daniel Hemen and David Kamin have nicely explained in the Yale Journal on Regulation. The law at issue was written in 1918, and it has always been interpreted to refer to nominal (i.e., not inflation-adjusted) costs. Other portions of the tax code explicitly require inflation adjustments, suggesting that Congress knows how to do this when it wants and did not wish to in this case. Further, in subsequent laws, Congress decided to tax capital gains at a lower rate than ordinary income in part because capital gains include inflation. There is simply no sign that Congress intended to allow for an inflation adjustment, or that it intentionally delegated this choice to the executive.In 1992, the George H. W. Bush administration considered making this very same move but ultimately decided it didn't have the legal authority to. If Trump proceeds, his action will likely provoke a court challenge, the biggest questions in which will be (1) how much courts should defer to the executive branch when it stretches the meaning of laws and (2) whether any plaintiff has standing to sue, given how few people would face concrete harms from a tax cut given to other people. (Blue states, Democratic members of Congress, and some entities hurt by the change for technical reasons are some possible plaintiffs.)There are major policy problems here too, and not just the loss of revenue. Indexing the capital-gains tax but not certain other provisions of the tax code, such as deductions for interest paid on loans, will create "arbitrage" opportunities where people can shift money around to evade taxes. Here's an example from Hemel and Kamin:> Imagine that a taxpayer buys an asset for $100 that is fully financed by a loan. Assume that the real interest rate is zero, that the inflation rate is 10%, and that the nominal interest rate on the loan is 10% as well. One year later, assuming no change in the real value of the asset, the asset will be worth $110 on account of inflation. If basis is indexed for inflation, the taxpayer can sell the asset for $110 and recognize no taxable gain. Assuming that the interest is properly allocable to a trade or business, the taxpayer can claim an interest deduction of $10 with no offsetting gain, despite the fact that the taxpayer is in the same pre-tax position as previously. Put differently, the effort to eliminate the taxation of phantom gains leads to opportunities for the creation of phantom losses.The lender in that case might owe taxes on his $10 gain — but not if it's a non-profit, and these taxes can be lower than what would be owed on a capital gain anyhow.Not to mention the trivial effects on growth. The Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank generally bullish on the economy-boosting effects of tax cuts, puts the long-run GDP boost at 0.1 percent.Reworking how we treat capital gains could be a worthy project for Congress as part of further tax reform. But if Congress won't do this, presidential action is not a good substitute.
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| More than 120 U.S. military construction projects to be hurt by Trump's border wall funding Posted: 03 Sep 2019 03:57 PM PDT  More than 120 U.S. military construction projects will be adversely affected as the Pentagon prepares to use $3.6 billion to help build or enhance 175 miles (282 km) of the border wall with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. Earlier this year, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The emergency declaration allows the Trump administration to use money from the military construction budget and the Pentagon has said it could use $3.6 billion from the budget.
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| Jacob Wohl Charged With Felony in California Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:01 PM PDT  Joshua Roberts/ReutersCalifornia authorities issued an arrest warrant for blundering conservative operative Jacob Wohl, who is now due to be arraigned on a felony charge next month, court records show.As The Daily Beast first reported earlier on Wednesday, Wohl and a former business partner were both wanted on a warrant signed in Riverside County on Aug. 19.The warrant was recalled after Wohl—best known for a spree of bizarre, half-baked political schemes—appeared in court on Wednesday. He was released on his own recognizance until his Oct. 24 arraignment on a charge of unlawful sale of securities, prosecutors said.The allegation that Wohl and Johnson unlawfully sold securities centers on one of Wohl's financial companies, Montgomery Assets. A warrant application filed by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office notes that the three-year statute of limitations on the case was set to expire at the end of August 2019, meaning prosecutors had to file by the end of last month if they wanted to pursue charges."In 2016 Jacob Wohl and Matthew Johnson represented themselves as members of a company called Montgomery Assets," the warrant application reads. "On July 27, 2016 through August 27, 2016 Jacob Wohl and Matthew Johnson offered for sale unqualified securities in violation of California Corporations Code 25110 which has a three year statute of limitations and must be tolled by the issuance of an arrest warrant."Send The Daily Beast a TipWohl, who became infamous on Twitter for his devoted replies to presidential tweets and fake claims to have heard liberals praising Trump in "hipster coffee shops," didn't respond to a request for comment. Johnson also couldn't be reached for comment.Wohl's detractors have often puzzled over how, until now, he had avoided serious legal consequences. That's because Wohl has routinely pushed the legal and political envelope to seemingly absurd lengths.In November 2018, Wohl teamed up with Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman for a spectacularly failed attempt to concoct a bogus sexual assault smear against then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The pair also attempted to fake a similar allegation against Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, which flopped after The Daily Beast obtained audio of Wohl and Burkman trying to pressure a potential "victim" into making a false allegation against Buttigieg. In February, Wohl faked a death threat against himself, then reported the bogus crime to Minneapolis police. This summer, a phone number associated with Wohl was used to threaten a former GOP campaign worker, although Wohl denied involvement in the incident.Did a Far-Right Star Recruit Jacob Wohl to Terrorize Women?The California charge against Wohl, 21, dates back to his pre-politics career in finance. In 2016, Wohl, then a teenager, portrayed himself in media reports and pitches to potential investors as a hedge fund wunderkind. Investigators with the National Futures Association started to look into the operations of another Wohl company after a client complained that Wohl claimed to have rapidly increased the client's $75,000 investment to $89,000. When the client tried to withdraw his money, however, Wohl allegedly only sent back $44,000. The investigators noted in a report that Wohl's promotional materials for the company claimed that Wohl had nine years of trading experience. That claim meant that Wohl, then 17 or 18 years old, would have been trading since he was 8 or 9 years old. Wohl withdrew from the NFA ahead of the investigation, and eventually received a lifetime ban from the group. Jacob Wohl Defends Tricking College Kid to Accuse Mayor Pete of Sexual Assault: He Got a Caramel FrappuccinoWohl has faced other consequences over his financial work. In 2017, the Arizona Corporation Commission ordered Wohl to pay nearly $33,000 in restitution, as well as an additional $5,000, for alleged violations of securities law. A commission spokeswoman told the Arizona Republic in Nov. 2018 that Wohl had not made any payments on the money that he owed under the fine.Despite those setbacks, Wohl hasn't left finance behind entirely. Ahead of the 2020 presidential race, Wohl solicited potential investors on a plan to profit from political betting markets by manipulating them with fake scandals and other fraudulent news stories. It's not clear what happened to that plan.Sari Fordham contributed reporting.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Hong Kong leader scraps loathed extradition law Posted: 04 Sep 2019 06:06 AM PDT  Hong Kong's leader on Wednesday bowed to a key demand of pro-democracy protesters following three months of unrest, announcing the withdrawal of a loathed extradition bill, but activists vowed to press on with their campaign. Millions of people have taken to Hong Kong's streets since June in the biggest challenge to China's rule of semi-autonomous Hong Kong since its handover from the British in 1997. After refusing for months to scrap the bill, which aimed to allow extradition of criminal suspects to mainland China, chief executive Carrie Lam finally conceded as she called for calm and an end to violent protests.
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| Former Chicago Police Sergeant: Today's shooters are tomorrow's victims Posted: 03 Sep 2019 05:36 PM PDT  Retired Chicago Police Sgt. Peter Koconis on Chicago crime wave, recent shootings on 'The Story.'
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| Mississippi wedding venue cites 'Christian belief' in refusing interracial couple Posted: 03 Sep 2019 03:41 PM PDT  The business owner has since apologized after being captured on video saying she wouldn't allow an interracial couple to get married at her venue.
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| Ford Recalling F-150 and Other Models for Potentially Dangerous Seat Defect Posted: 03 Sep 2019 11:30 AM PDT  Nearly half a million vehicles are involved, including new and recent F-150, Super Duty, Explorer, and Expedition models.
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| ACLU criticizes bill criminalizing domestic terrorism Posted: 03 Sep 2019 10:13 PM PDT  The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday urged ranking members of the House Judiciary Committee to oppose a bill that targets white supremacist groups by criminalizing domestic terrorism. The ACLU said the bill would unnecessarily expand authorities used by the Trump administration to target and discriminate against the very communities Congress hopes to protect. "People of color and other marginalized communities have long been targeted under domestic terrorism authorities for unfair and discriminatory surveillance, investigations, and prosecutions," the civil rights group said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, and Rep. Doug Collins, the ranking Republican member.
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| Walmart’s Retreat on Guns Means Woke Capitalism Is Here to Stay Posted: 04 Sep 2019 11:09 AM PDT  My first job was selling guns at Walmart. I was a clerk in the sporting-goods department at our local store in Georgetown, Ky. Georgetown was a much smaller place then. This was years before Toyota came to town, put an immense car plant in a field not far from my house, and started producing Camrys by the tens of thousands. The population was less than 10,000, tobacco farms dotted the countryside, and Future Farmers of America was one of the largest clubs in my high school.This was also the era when students would roll into class in the morning still wearing hunting camouflage, with their rifles in the trunks of their cars or mounted in their pickups. So when I started my work life selling guns, the only thing that was notable about my job was the wage — $3.70 per hour, a full 35 cents more than minimum wage.I can't tell you how many rifles, pistols, and handguns I sold during my brief Walmart career. It was the same procedure every time. The customer would fill out a form, I'd take their money, and either hand them the firearm at the counter, or — if they bought ammunition at the same time — walk them to the front of the store before I gave them their new gun. It was a fun job for a teenager, and I learned a great deal about guns.So I was more interested than most to read about Walmart's latest retreat from the firearms business. Responding to the recent string of mass shootings — including one in a Walmart store in El Paso — the company announced that it was ending sales of handgun ammunition and ammunition for AR-style rifles. The company's CEO also called for a debate on renewing an assault weapons ban and for strengthened background checks. Walmart had already largely stopped selling handguns and so-called "assault weapons," and now a company born and bred in deep-red America was decisively breaking with the culture that was indispensable in making Walmart the mightiest retailer in the land.Woke capital is here to stay, and Walmart proves it. At first glance, Walmart's decision is mystifying. What's next? NASCAR going all-Prius to save the planet? Even if you grant the reality that Walmart has grown far beyond its original red-state base, why would the company want to alienate half their customer base?But that's old America-style thinking. This is new America, and new America is in the grips of profound negative polarization. "Negative polarization" means, simply, that Americans who participate in politics are motivated more by distaste (more like disgust) for the other side than they are by any particular affection for their own. Indeed, affection for politicians on your own side is often dependent on the level of disgust they can display for your opposition.In this new America, the calculus has changed. It used to be that if you spoke as a corporation you risked alienating customers. Now, you also risk alienating customers if you don't speak. Silence has costs. In an article last year about Walmart's corporate turn to the left, Walmart officials cited marketing data indicating that the overwhelming majority of Walmart customers wanted it to "take a stand on important social issues."Now, in a closely divided nation, whose values will the corporation champion? All other things being equal, the answer is obvious — the company will stand for the values of the people making the decision. This is the most human thing in the world. Once the decision is forced on a corporation, how many people of conviction will choose to advance ideas they loathe? At best, they'll stay silent and ride out the backlash from failing to take a stand. A corporate ethos that used to say to leaders, "Keep your head down and do your work," is being replaced by an ethos that declares, "You have power and a platform. Use them."And the values at issue become self-reinforcing. Corporate executives compete for top talent, and the biographies of these people tend to look a lot like the executives' own — often from elite institutions, frequently from America's economically dynamic urban centers, and, failing that, still highly educated.That's the American demographic that's blue -- and getting bluer every year.Moreover, aside from a few exceptional moments, companies don't truly face meaningful market penalties for taking controversial stands. Sure, some consumers may boycott, but others will seek them out. The vast bulk of the dissenters may grumble, but they'll still shop. After all, if they truly like a Nike shoe, or if they have piles of frequent-flyer points at American Airlines, or if Walmart is far closer and more convenient than any other comparable store, the vast majority of consumers won't sacrifice convenience, price, or perks for their politics.In the final analysis, the incentives are clear. Corporate executives are motivated by their own values (and the peer pressure of like-minded colleagues) to take progressive political stands, and the market doesn't materially punish their choice. As for consumers? They still shop, but their polarization proceeds apace — they're embittered (or thrilled) by decisions that have nothing at all to do with the products they seek.
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| CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Britain abandons plan to immediately end freedom of movement after Brexit Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:53 PM PDT ![CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Britain abandons plan to immediately end freedom of movement after Brexit]( "CORRECTED-UPDATE 1-Britain abandons plan to immediately end freedom of movement after Brexit") Britain's government has abandoned plans to end freedom of movement for European Union citizens immediately after a possible no-deal Brexit and will instead return to an earlier policy of giving them three years' temporary leave to remain. The fate of EU migrants had been thrown further into confusion by the government's announcement last month that their automatic right to live and work in Britain would end abruptly - and sooner than expected - in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The plan was branded reckless by lawyers, which said it could result in millions of EU nationals who were legally resident in Britain but had not yet applied for settled status losing some of their rights.
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| View Photos of the 2020 Porsche 911 Carrera Posted: 04 Sep 2019 04:59 AM PDT |
| Hong Kong stocks surge after extradition bill withdrawal reports Posted: 04 Sep 2019 12:14 AM PDT  Hong Kong's stock market soared Wednesday after local media reported that the city's embattled leader is planning to fully withdraw a loathed extradition bill, one of the main demands of pro-democracy protesters. The Hang Seng index leapt more than three percent in afternoon trade after the South China Morning Post and HK01 both published reports that the city's pro-Beijing chief executive Carrie Lam was planning to shelve the bill.
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| Four states will determine who wins the 2020 US presidential race, analysts say Posted: 04 Sep 2019 08:18 AM PDT  In a politically divided nation, with attitudes among many voters hardened and resistant to change, the 2020 US presidential election could be contested on the narrowest electoral terrain in recent memory.Just four states are likely to determine the outcome in 2020: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida. Each flipped to the Republicans in 2016, but Donald Trump won each by only a percentage point or less.
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